On 14th-17th February we'll be running a retro computing exhibition at Kingston University, focusing mainly on machines from the 70s through 80s. There will be loads of interesting machines to tinker with and look at - and because a lot of the interactive (read "working"!) exhibits come from my own collection we'll be very Spectrum heavy!
I suspect many of the people on this board will have just as many Spectrums, maybe more, but our champagne exhibit will be two Q1 machines, which are incredibly rare - rare enough for me to personally have never heard of them! (When the company we're working with was showing me prospective exhibits, I literally walked by the Q1s thinking they were IBM Selectric typewriters!). When you delve into them, they are absolutely fascinating devices. Generally considered to be the first microcomputers released (circa 1972, see https://hackaday.com/2022/09/28/the-fir ... er-the-q1/ and https://www.thebyteattic.com/p/q1.html) and used by NASA, there's only five or so accounted for out there - we have two
The Q1 predates even the Altair, and was the first true microcomputer, i.e. the first fully-integrated desktop machine with a single-chip processor as CPU.If you're local (or if you're enthusiastic enough to travel!) do come along and support us. It's half term, so bring the kids, and we can show them what real games and coding looks like! We'll have games and coding competitions (anyone for a Central Cavern speedrun compo?
The consoles that led to the 8-bit era will also be on show and running, i.e. Atari 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision.Please see https://www.kingston.ac.uk/news/article ... in-public/ for the official blurb about the exhibition - and please forgive the Commodore 64 (spit) as the top image (although it is a rare silver label, and there is a Speccy further down!).
Hope to see you all there!
